The Justice, Development and Peace Centre (JDPC) is the structure through which the Church responds to social issues affecting all men and women created in the image and likeness of God. The manner of this response is based on the Social Teachings of the Church (STC). According to the Vatican II document, every Catholic – both Clergy and Laity – by virtue of our baptism, is commissioned to stand up for justice and peace wherever we find ourselves. This is why the JDPC is not regarded as a Lay Apostolate Society, but a unique structure (commission) to which bishops, priests, the religious and the lay faithful automatically belong.

However, the Church entrusts the duty of identifying, fighting and correcting all unjust structures in the hands of only a few of the faithful who volunteer as active and registered members of the JDPC on behalf of the entire Church, while the rest of the faithful are expected to participate by way of moral, material, logistic and financial support, etc.

Why the JDPC?

According to Pope Paul VI, when sin takes the form of a structure, one requires another structure to adequately combat and overcome it. It is clear that in the modern world, cases of injustice, corruption, bad governance, discrimination and other societal ills have assumed alarming dimensions at all levels of human existence.

Consequently, the JDPC structure emerged as part of the mission of the Church towards the holistic salvation of man (that is, both Spiritual and Physical).